Police in Fremont, California are investigating a “possible hate crime” after a Chinese-American political candidate’s campaign poster was vandalised with Nazi-themed graffiti, the East Bay Times on Saturday.

Devil horns and a swastika were scrawled on a poster featuring Justin Sha, a 25-year-old lawyer who is running for the city council.

Sha complained about his posters being defaced on Facebook.

“I felt a complicated mixture of sadness, pain and anger,” he said in an interview.

“This was made worse because my father saw the vandalised signs before I did. He was very emotional and unsuccessfully tried to erase the swastika symbol with his finger.”